[vcf-midatlantic] An idea for preservation and a proposal for the future of the VCF's library of written media.

Jeffrey Brace jeffrey at vcfed.org
Mon May 16 13:29:36 UTC 2022


On Sun, May 15, 2022 at 5:59 PM W2HX via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:

> > an investment in a non-destructive book scanner for the VCF which can be
> used to back up the existing library of physical written media
>
> A physical book will likely outlast any digitized version of it by
> hundreds of years. And don't underestimate the fact that whatever digital
> rendition of the book is created now, in 20-30 years it may have to get
> re-converted to whatever is current.  I remember when .djvu files were
> considered the archive format of choice. Then PDF came out. There will be a
> time when even PDFs won't be readable anymore and hopefully someone will
> have converted the scans before that happens.
>
> I used to be involved in the digitization of wax (and amberol) cylinder
> phonograph records. The issue arose there too. Lossy? Not lossy? Ogg
> vorbis? Conversion to new media formats in the future? Etc.
>
> But books, if properly handled, can exist for centuries.


I appreciate everyone, their opinions, comments and suggestions. This is a
great and worthwhile discussion.

As stated earlier the issues for VCF are:

   - Volunteers - We have them, but do they want to archive?
   - Volunteer Time - How much time can they give?
   - Scanning equipment - Minimal. We can always buy or borrow.
   - Space for the scanning equipment - Very little space.
   - Space to store the library in an HVAC environment. - We don't have
   this.

Right now we have a small library that was consolidated, but it is not in
an HVAC environment. We are working on getting a new warehouse space, and
making it climate controlled. This will take time, money, and effort by
volunteers and contractors, etc.

>From my point of view VCF doesn't have all of the necessary resources to do
an archiving activity on this scale. Like others have stated, this is best
handed off to those who *do* have the resources. If we ever grow our
organization to a higher level of resources, then this could be a viable
thing that we could do.

=========================================
Jeff Brace
VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President
Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner
Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity
https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/>
jeffrey at vcfed.org


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